Mr. Hazelton grinned.
“Biggest catch I ever pulled out of that river, I can tell you!” he said.
“The bravery of that young man, to jump in to save Blue,” Mrs. Wells said. “How’s he doing?”
I took it that she was talking about Raleigh, but none of this was making any sense. Raleigh was terrified of water. But he’d jumped in the river?
To rescue me.
“Doc says he’s got a concussion and some water in the lungs,” Mr. Gilpin said, “but he’s going to be all right. Said he about had to tie Raleigh down to keep him from coming over here, he’s that worried about you, Blue.”
“We were all worried about you,” Mrs. Fitch said. “We all care about you so much, Blue.”
I could see a dozen heads bobbing vigorously.
“Without you, it’d be pretty dull around here,” Mrs. Barclay said. “Us old folks need someone like you to liven things up.”
More nods.
“And we’re hoping you’ll join the quilting group,” Mrs. Thompson said. “I’ve got a good pattern for a beginner.”
“Too bad we couldn’t add you to the quilt,” Mrs. Barclay said. “You and Raleigh are part of the town’s history now.”
“Gracious, yes,” said Mrs. Potter. “It’s a story they’ll be telling around here for years.”
“I think—” began Mrs. Gallagher, but Mr. Gilpin interrupted her.
“I think we need to give this girl some privacy, now that we know she’s all right,” he said. He herded everyone toward the door, except for one person I hadn’t noticed until now.
Nadine.
“I thought you’d already left,” I said.
“I had to make sure you were all right,” Nadine said. “You’re my best friend, you know.” I don’t know why that made the back of my throat ache, but it did.
“Are your folks still going to sell the camp?” I asked.
Nadine nodded. “But Mama says I can come visit you next summer. If that’s okay with you.”
I nodded right back at her. It was more than okay. She wasn’t old Nadine or new Nadine anymore.
Just Nadine. My best friend, now and always.
“I wonder what will happen to the Wright brothers, causing such a stir,” Hannah asked.
“Well, they hightailed it out of town,” Mr. Gilpin said. “I imagine it’s going to be some time before they dare show their faces around here again. They’re lucky no one was killed, that explosion only punched a hole in the dam. If it’d blown the whole thing, well, that would be a different story. As it is, there are quite a few flooded buildings, including the Monitor.”
“What a day,” Hannah sighed. “Too bad about the celebration, Wallace. All that work you put into it, and now the whole thing will have to be cancelled.”
“Who said anything like that?” Mr. Gilpin thundered. “I’m not cancelling the celebration. The history that I wrote washed away, but we’re still putting on the pageant.”
“You can use the history that Blue wrote,” Nadine piped up.
I swiveled my head to look at her. How did she know about that? I wondered. I hadn’t told Nadine I was doing it.
“I came by your house this morning to say goodbye,” Nadine told me. “I went upstairs, looking for you, and that’s when I found it.”
Mr. Gilpin fixed his eyes on me.
“You didn’t tell me you were writing a history,” he said.
“It’s j-just stories I wrote down that Hannah and the quilting ladies told,” I stammered. “It’s not very good.”
“It is too!” Nadine almost shouted. “I wasn’t supposed to read it, but I did, and it’s really good.”
“If Blue wrote it, I’m sure it is,” Mr. Gilpin said. “I’m eager to read it. But right now I’m off to finish writing up this story before Roy scoops me, and get the paper out.”
“But how?” Hannah asked. “The Monitor’s flooded.”
“Roy says I can print the paper at his office till we can get everything dried out,” Mr. Gilpin said. “I’m certain he won’t mind if we print up Blue’s history, too.”
I was sure I hadn’t heard right.
“Mr. Allard is going to let you print there?” I asked.
“Of course,” Mr. Gilpin said, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. “I’d do the same for him.”
“I did manage to rescue one thing from the office,” Mr. Gilpin went on, and plopped his dictionary down on the chair beside the tub. “Thought you might be needing it.”
I looked at him, not understanding.
“I’m offering you a job, after school and summers,” Mr. Gilpin said. “That is, if you’re planning on staying.”
Hannah must have told him I’d run away, I thought. If so, he probably knew about the college fund jar too. I ducked my head in shame and gave a weak little nod.
“Good,” Mr. Gilpin said. “Speaking of rescues—you were going to rescue his animals, weren’t you?”
I wondered how he knew that, but I nodded again.
“That’s what you were trying to tell me at Old Home Day, wasn’t it, about Raleigh’s animals?” Mr. Gilpin said, as if reading my mind.
I looked at him in surprise, and he grinned.
“I’m not an investigative reporter for nothing, you know,” he said. “Anyway, I want you to write up a story about Raleigh and how he’s been rescuing and caring for those animals all these years, and we’re going to see if we can’t build him a wildlife sanctuary, where he can take care of birds and animals for as long as he wants to. I think it’s his calling.”
I thought so, too, and I thought how happy Raleigh would be that he could help even more animals.
“You’ll be an apprentice, and work your way up, just like I did,” Mr. Gilpin said. “That was a good piece of detective work you did, finding out about those missing animals, even if it did turn out to be Raleigh instead of the Wright brothers. Shows you’ve got the makings of a good reporter. Might even be your calling.”
Mr. Gilpin opened the door, but paused, his hand on the doorknob.
“Who knows,” he said. “You might even take over the paper someday.”
He gave a little smile and clicked the door shut behind him.
chapter 33
It seemed too quiet with just me and Hannah.
“I’m sorry about the college fund—” I began, but Hannah nearly smothered me in a hug.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Oh, Blue, I could have lost you.”
I knew she must have about a hundred questions for me, and I had some for her, too.
“How’d you know—” I began again, meaning to ask how she’d known where to look for me, but Hannah didn’t let me finish.
“I just knew you were in trouble,” she said.
Hannah didn’t say another word as she toweled me off, wrapped a quilt around me, set me on the couch, and fixed me a cup of cocoa, with extra marshmallows. When she sat down next to me, I figured I was going to get the talking-to of my life.
“Now,” she said, “why were you running away?”
“Is Myrtle my mother?” I asked her.
Only a flicker of surprise crossed Hannah’s face. She sat for what seemed like a century before she answered.
“Yes,” she said. “From the moment I saw you, I knew. You were the spitting image of her.”
She looked at me.
“I imagine you’d like to see some pictures of her,” she said.
There were pictures of Myrtle? How could I have lived in this house for ten and a half years and not known that? I nodded.
Hannah went into her bedroom and came back out a few minutes later with a worn photo album. She showed me photos of Myrtle as a baby, in first grade, riding Dolly, paddling a canoe. If I squinted, any of those photos could have been of me.
There was one of her crying.
“That was at Old Home Day, when a clown tried to give her a balloon,” Hannah said. “Myrtle never did like clowns.”
A shiver ran through me. If finding my mama was like piecing a quilt, another piece had just got sewn into place.
There were later photos of Myrtle, too, in high school. Hannah pointed to one of them.
“This is the last photo I have of her,” she said. “It was taken a month before she left.”
The picture was a little blurry, but it showed Myrtle standing in front of the barn, her hands tucked into her coat pockets.
“I’ve studied that picture a thousand times,” Hannah said, “trying to figure out how I missed all the signs that she was in trouble, too.
“I wanted her to go to college so bad, to have the opportunities that I’d missed out on, I never asked what she wanted,” Hannah continued. “Then, when I found you, I thought, Here’s my second chance.”
I thought of the college fund jar, and felt my face flush with shame. All that hard-saved money lost, and Hannah’s dreams dashed again.
I stared at Myrtle’s face.
“What was she like?” I whispered.
“She was stubborn as a mule,” Hannah said. “Whenever I told her to do something, she gave me eleven reasons why she shouldn’t have to.”
“She sounds obstreperous,” I said without thinking. That had been one of the words I’d learned from “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power.” That seemed a hundred years ago.
Hannah looked startled, then burst out laughing.
“Yes, obstreperous, but she had a sweet side, too. She was her father’s daughter, through and through, and I guess I’m glad Herbert died before Myrtle ran away, because I’m sure that would have killed him. It pretty near killed me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come into my life, Blue.”
My throat closed up, and I was afraid I was going to start bawling. In all my ten years, I’d never heard Hannah say so much, or with so much feeling.
“Why did she leave?” I asked.
Hannah sighed.
“After Herbert died, I was grieving so much that I couldn’t see how much Myrtle was grieving, too. I’m sure she just wanted to get away. She met a boy at a dance, and they started seeing each other. I didn’t think she was old enough to be dating, and I didn’t think this boy was good enough for her. He was wild, and reckless, and I thought he was going to break her heart, but part of it was selfish, too. I didn’t want her leaving me to rattle around in this house all alone. So I put my foot down, forbade her to see him. She told me one night that he was coming for her, that they were going to run off together, but he didn’t show up. Turned out, coming to get her, he crashed his car. They pulled him out alive, but Doc didn’t give him much chance of surviving and said he’d have brain damage if he did. Next thing I knew, Myrtle had disappeared. Wasn’t but a month later that you were left in my yard.”
I closed my eyes. It was just too much to take in.
“It’s true, that old saying, Be careful what you wish for, it might come true,” Hannah said. “After Myrtle left, all I wanted was for her to come back. But then I was terrified she would.”
I couldn’t imagine Hannah terrified. Why wouldn’t she want her daughter back? And wasn’t that the same as Myrtle not wanting me back?
I kept my eyes closed, just letting Hannah talk.
“I was afraid she’d take you back, Blue,” Hannah said. “It was almost as if I’d made a trade, Myrtle for you, and I wasn’t willing to trade back.”
That I could understand. It was what I’d been wrestling with, out there, before I got hit by the water, deciding if I was willing to trade Hannah for Myrtle.
“I’m sorry, Blue,” Hannah said. “I wanted to do better by you, but it looks like I’ve just made the same mistakes. I should have told you about Myrtle, and I should have told you more often how proud I am of you.”
Well, I hadn’t done a very good job letting Hannah know how I felt about her, either.
“You were foolish risking your life to rescue those animals,” Hannah went on. “But very brave, too. But then I guess you would be, being Spencer Chamberlain’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter.”
I opened my eyes and stared into Hannah’s face, not understanding.
“The boy Myrtle loved,” Hannah said. “It was Raleigh.”
Raleigh? Raleigh True?
My father?
“When I heard him call you Blue True, I knew for certain that Myrtle must have told him she was going to have a baby, that’s why they were going to run off together,” Hannah said.
I thought of the initials carved in the rock: M + R.
Myrtle and Raleigh.
Hannah sighed.
“I just wish she’d been able to tell me,” she said.
All this time, I’d been wondering about and looking for my mother, and my father had been right here, the whole time.
All this time, Raleigh had been trying to tell me.
Only four words, but they told my story: Blue True, baby, Myrtle. The clues had been there all along, if only I’d listened.
Raleigh True.
My father.
Hannah stood up and rummaged around in the desk drawer. She handed me a piece of paper. Myrtle’s name was on it, and an address out in California.
“It’s an old address, so she might have moved,” Hannah said. “She never answered any of my letters. But she just might answer one from you.”
Finally, after all this searching, was I going to find my real mama?
Hannah reached for her sweater.
“I hate leaving you home alone,” she said, “but Mabel’s mother is doing poorly. They think she may pass tonight. I thought I’d go sit with her, if you think you’re all right.”
That was Hannah. Not only did she help the living, but she helped ease their passing on into the next life, too.
Hannah picked up her bag and headed for the door.
“Did you see Cat today?” I asked.
Hannah gave a little shake of her head and left.
The room seemed as big as a barn, the only sounds the hiss of the fire in the stove and the soft ticking of the clock. It had been just a few hours since I’d left this morning.
It seemed like a million years.
I pulled the quilt around me and sat by the stove trying to sort out how I felt. Melancholy? Forlorn? Atrabilarious? But I was tired of all the big words.
I just felt plain blue.
Maybe that’s why Hannah had named me Blue. Maybe that’s how she’d felt, with a daughter who had just run off. Maybe Blue was the only name that seemed right.
I thought about Raleigh and Myrtle, and how their dreams of a life together had shattered. I could see why Myrtle had run off, but why hadn’t she ever come back for me?
I even thought about Cat. I’d loved her, but she’d left me, too. My own mama hadn’t wanted me, and now Cat hadn’t wanted me, either.
With so many thoughts tumbling through my head, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink, but no one had told that to my eyelids, so I was sinking into sleep when a floorboard on the porch creaked.
chapter 34
I froze as whatever it was shuffled across the porch. I thought of the ghost stories that Keith had told me and Nadine.
The hair rose prickly on my neck.
Something bumped against the door. I burrowed down into the couch, wishing I could hide under it.
Something, or someone, was outside.
What if it was Myrtle, come back for me, I wondered.
What if it wasn’t?
I was off the couch in an instant and snatched up Hannah’s rolling pin. Holding it over my head, I reached for the doorknob. What if the man with the hook was on the other side, reaching for the doorknob right now …?
I shuddered and cracked open the door.
Cat stood on the porch.
I held my breath, afraid if I blinked, Cat would disappear and it would be just a dream, but last I’d heard, dreams don’t step into a kitchen and rub up against your leg.
I reached down slowly and C
at let me pick her up, but she gave a little cry and I saw why. Her right front leg was swollen to three times its normal size.
“Oh, Cat,” I said, softly. “What happened to you?”
Cat tucked her head under my arm. She was hot with fever, and I could feel her pounding heart.
My own heart was pounding, too. After all these weeks, I couldn’t believe I was holding her.
I sat by the fire, holding Cat as gently as I could, and scratched under her chin. I wished Hannah were home; she’d know how to doctor Cat. Because we didn’t have a telephone, I couldn’t call her or Dr. Todd, the veterinarian, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I simply sat and patted Cat. She even purred a little, sick as she was.
Cat made up her own mind when it was time to leave. I’d been hoping she’d stay the night where we could keep an eye on her, and I didn’t want to let her go, but she struggled and I was afraid of hurting her leg, so I set her on the floor. Cat limped to the door and stood there, waiting.
“Don’t go, Cat,” I said. But Cat stood, her nose against the door, and I knew I had to let her go. I could hardly bear to watch her hobble away.
I washed the dishes and was sweeping when I heard the bump again. I ran to open the door.
Cat held a small kitten in her mouth.
I knelt on the floor and Cat placed the kitten in my hands. I closed my eyes and held the kitten under my chin.
“Oh, Cat, he’s so soft,” I said, but when I opened my eyes, Cat was gone.
I stepped onto the porch.
“Cat!” I called out into the night, and I was still standing there, holding the kitten, when Hannah came home.
Hannah heated milk in a saucepan and showed me how to feed the kitten with an eyedropper. I told her of Cat’s swollen leg.
“Cat knew she couldn’t take care of her kitten anymore,” Hannah said. “She brought it to someone she knew would,” and looking into Hannah’s warm, gentle face, I wondered if my mama had left me here with Hannah for that very same reason.
chapter 35
A few days later, I found Cat’s body, and I buried her in the orchard. I buried the quilt with her. I’m not looking for my mama anymore. Who left me isn’t as important as who rescued me, and even if my own mama were to knock on our door tomorrow and want to take me with her, I guess I’d stay right here. Hannah might be my grandma, but she’s the only mama I’ve ever known.
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